Re: Ellis...you bid on 95 of these things? Message #3 Posted by Ellis Easley on 12 Apr 2003, 8:29 a.m., in response to message #1 by gene
I bid on 4 of them because I have 4 old packs waiting to be rebuilt, and I'm disenchanted with the cells in the portable drill battery packs I bragged on a while back - the straps they are connected with don't solder easily. I think they are made of stainless steel and I finally managed to tin them using an organic acid flux and 96/4 tin/silver solder, then washing all the flux off and finally soldering wires to them with 96/4 rosin core solder. Along the way I found that one source of trouble was the heat sink effect of the cells so next pack I rebuild, I'm going to try making cuts most of the way across the width of the strap, from alternating sides. After making a few cuts like that, I will stretch them out like expanded metal, making a longer, narrow (ziz-zag) strip that should be easier to tin (better temperature control), easier to wash off the flux, and maybe even long enough to eliminate any additional wires.
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